


A love that seems great beyond growth

by sshysmm



Category: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, F/F, Fluff and Smut, Friendship/Love, Healing, Porn with Feelings, Post-Book 6: Checkmate (Lymond Chronicles), Post-Canon, Recovery, Romantic Fluff, Smut, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, the band Au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:15:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23083834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sshysmm/pseuds/sshysmm
Summary: *turns up to femslash February a week late with canon-impossible ship*December 1989, months after a dramatic dénouement in Edinburgh, Marthe has recovered enough to leave the past behind and make good on her promise to visit Oonagh in her new life. Jetlagged, fragile and emotional, Marthe is more than repaid for her care of Oonagh when they first met.A sequel toMás é an ceol bia an ghrá.
Relationships: Marthe/Oonagh O'Dwyer
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1
Collections: Lymond fics set in the Band/'80s AU





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [word_docs_and_willowboughs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/word_docs_and_willowboughs/gifts).



> The poem referenced throughout is 'To Asra' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which is also where the title is drawn from.

It was hard to take in all the new detail in the world. To keep reminding herself to appreciate it anew.

Marthe felt as though she had been trapped in a flare of light glancing off the windowpane of the jet that had brought her into the airport at Christchurch: she felt oddly insubstantial; radiant and sharp. She squinted at the landscape outside, memories of the Midwest mingling with those of Scottish summers. Sky the same blue as August in Edinburgh.

She swallowed and smoothed her short hair behind an ear, rubbed at her chest with her knuckles. It was cold like Scotland, but everything was big like the US. It felt like a composite fantasy land she had dreamed up in all her imaginings of making this journey.

Strange fears made her heart beat irregularly as she hauled her luggage slowly towards the Arrivals pen. What if she didn't recognise her? What if she had exaggerated everything about her in her hungry memories: the maroon sheen on her lustrous black hair, the pinch of mirth at the corner of her lips and her knowing green eyes, all fondness and acid together, ready to burst into laughter for Marthe alone. Her voice, going from hard staccato to the rush of gushing spring water, at once breathy but firm.

Marthe blinked at the people waiting, at first able to see all of them except the one she wanted to see. It was like watching a performance and focussing on the dimly lit backing players, as though she could not look at the spot lit star in centre stage.

Oonagh was taller than nearly all of them, wearing monochrome: blousy black and white trousers that rippled against her legs in the draught of air from the exit, a top striped horizontally with blocks of grey and white, and an asymmetrical jacket, collar and drapery confounding expectations of how a jacket should hang. Concern dappled her beautiful features and Marthe drew her shoulders back and glided towards her, luggage drawn behind, until they stood virtually toe to toe.

Oonagh's worry crumpled into a smile, but she bit her lip and the frown on her brows endured. She put her hands on Marthe's biceps, her fingers squeezing tight. Her eyes were suddenly glassy, her nose looked a little pink, and Marthe tried to give her a breezy smirk. Oonagh's hands rose and fluttered at the hem of her hair - golden licks that had grown to a couple of inches and were swept back from Marthe's pale brow in artistic disarray - and then she threw her arms around Marthe and brought her close with a gasp.

Marthe tumbled against her, leaning her chin on Oonagh's hard shoulder and lolling her head against the pillow of Oonagh's hair. She sighed and looked up at the speckled tiles on the ceiling, tightening her hold in tandem with Oonagh, unsure whether she should feel aggrieved or relieved to find tears spring to her own eyes.

"My God, my God," Oonagh breathed into her neck, rocking her from side to side gently. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again."

Marthe laughed wetly, unsteadily, and she pulled away to flick the overspill off her lower lashes. "Yeah, well."

Oonagh's fingers were wondering at the tips of her hair again, tickling the nape of Marthe's neck.

Marthe shrugged, captured and enfolded Oonagh's hands, and held them between their bodies fondly. "I know, it's drastic."

"It's gorgeous. It suits you." Oonagh interjected.

"It was easier to take care of during," Marthe's tongue wrestled with the word and with her pride and she shook her head. "Recovery. Look. Do you mind if we just...don't talk about it?" Marthe's voice wavered and she looked down at Oonagh's hands, which moved and responded to her own touches: stroking, soothing, supporting. "For now?"

Marthe finally looked up and her eyes blurred again as soon as she saw Oonagh's tight little smile of understanding, her nod of agreement. Now that she was with her, Marthe just wanted to let the last three years dissipate from her thoughts. No more regrets and near-misses, just the easy, mutual understanding to be had by Oonagh's side.

"For as long as you need. I thought you might just want to get away for a bit," Oonagh took Marthe's heavy bag from her and Marthe sniffed and fussed unnecessarily with her corduroy jacket. "The car's packed. I've got a house-sitter and Cai is at a friend's. I thought we'd get right down to the holiday part of this."

Oonagh's strength had grown since they'd last been together. She hauled Marthe's case into the back of her dusty jeep without help. When she raised her arms to braid her hair into a swift, chunky plait, Marthe caught a glimpse of the cords of muscle at her armpits and shoulders, and though her face was as strikingly angular as ever, she looked less brittle than she had. The antipodean sun had burnished her tawny skin, and a smattering of fawn-brown freckles traced the edges of her forehead and the bridge of her nose.

Marthe climbed into the passenger seat and Oonagh leaned over to the glove compartment, rummaging for her sunglasses and a map that she dropped on Marthe's legs. After a glance at her expression, Oonagh laid her palm on Marthe's thigh, warm and firm through the fabric of her jeans.

"This weekend, we are going to go to a place where we can be whoever we might have been," Oonagh glanced sideways at Marthe as she started the engine and began to drive away from the airport.

Marthe smiled and returned her look: hard, certain, thrilled. She flicked through the pages of the map and leaned back in her seat.

"Lake Coleridge," Oonagh told her.

Marthe turned to the page, scanning the ribbons of colour laid down for their route.

" _Are there two things, of all which men possess,_

_that are so like each other and so near_..."

Marthe held the rest of the poem inside her chest for now, breathing over its words like she'd breathe on low flame to get a fire kindled.

Oonagh smiled crookedly, but she did not press Marthe to continue. They had all the time they needed.


	2. Chapter 2

Through the veil of her eyelashes, Marthe watched new countryside stream past. Oonagh talked softly about her life in Christchurch, about the community up at the lake - " _characters_ , Marthe, there's no other word for it" - and Marthe smiled wistfully at these glimpses of seclusion and contentment. It still felt less like she was entering Oonagh's world than that she was dragging Oonagh into her own transient dreams: the further from the airport they got, the less real it all seemed. A grey wall of mountain rose before them, the same colour as the road, and Marthe yawned, imagining a gateway in the side of the rock opening up to let them through into another realm.

"You can sleep in the car you know," Oonagh smiled. "Just tell me to shut my gob."

Marthe craned her head back against the seat and stretched her arms in front of her. "It's better to work through the jetlag."

"You know this is a holiday, right? You don't have to be on stage for sound-check at seven pm prompt."

Marthe's long lips curled into a crooked smirk, her eyes still nearly shut. "Mmm."

Oonagh snorted at the sceptical tone of her voice and responded by activating the sunroof.

They both laughed as Marthe's hair was scooped from its place, fanned and feathered across her brow and eyes by the cold mountain wind. It did shock her awake: the air had none of the blurred, distant picturesqueness of the landscape around them. It smelled of snow and chilled waters, strange blossoms and wood smoke, all in sharp relief, distinct and recognisable like threads woven together. Marthe filled her lungs as deep as she could with it.

Shortly thereafter, they drove through a small, neat-looking settlement. Square white buildings passed them, set back behind trees and spread even more generously than the American suburbs Marthe knew. There were a number of people around, moving about their gardens, walking their dogs, and Oonagh raised her fingers vertically from the steering wheel and dipped her chin at every one.

She pulled up next to a crowded sidewalk when a woman flagged her down from among the group. Marthe smiled politely as a discussion about fish was undertaken over her, through the passenger-side window, and she nodded slyly at the woman when introduced as Oonagh's best friend.

It transpired that the family had had a successful morning's expedition on the lake, and they had supposed that Oonagh and her guest might like to share in their bounty - the catch was in a cool box on the steps of Oonagh's bach.

"We thought you'd just want to relax this afternoon," the woman said, her fingers hooked on the open car window. She leaned close and Marthe saw her own firm, thin smile reflected in the woman's brown sunglasses.

"Didn't expect you to be a fisher yourself, chook," she seemed to look Marthe up and down, while Marthe's eyebrows tensed together in bemusement.

Oonagh snorted. "She's not, Maggie."

"Well it's only a matter of time, eh?"

Marthe turned her perplexed frown on Oonagh, who shook her head, grinning.

One of the young girls in the group outside the car ran up then and hung off the window by Maggie. She asked if Cai was going to be there, and Oonagh told her yes - for Christmas they'd all be at the lake. Before more questions could keep them, with a sage glance at the sleepy confusion written on Marthe's face, Oonagh thanked Maggie again for the fish and moved off.

"Friendly place," Marthe observed, peering at the vast hydroelectric plant on their left as the tarmac ended and Oonagh turned onto a gravel track.

"It is!" Oonagh chuckled. "They're not quite as stuck in their ways as they are back home."

Marthe raised her brows and Oonagh bit her lip.

"Not _home_. You know. They don't pry anyway, and they have no idea who I was. I told them I'm a widow."

At the defensive note that crept into Oonagh's voice, Marthe shrugged. "That's sensible." She did not care to ask what would happen if Cai's father made good on his promises to visit - in the meantime, Francis Crawford would be quite occupied enough with the wedded bliss he had finally accepted as his own.

"My bach is a bit further up the lake from where most of the holiday caravans are. It's quite secluded," Oonagh's grin made the hairs on Marthe's body stand on end, though her green eyes were hidden behind her sunglasses when she flashed a glance across.

"Good for fishing," Marthe nodded conspiratorially at the landscape.

Oonagh cast her head back to let out a sharp laugh. "You know, when over and over in your life people have been taking responsibility from you, telling you what you can't or shouldn't do - I've stopped thinking it's weird when I enjoy things that give me a sense of calmness and control."

Marthe looked at her with an uncomfortable mixture of pride and reticence. Oonagh's joy made her chest tighten, but it reminded her of her own clipped wings, and she wanted to keep those memories at bay for as long as possible. Her lips flattened.

"Good," she said shortly. Holidays were about getting away from the self - not analysing it.

She aimed to bend the conversation into a parody of itself. "So they thought I was a fisherwoman too? Was it the cords?" Marthe plucked at the fabric of her tawny jacket. "Or the practical haircut?"

Oonagh eyed her, and Marthe realised she was being sized up to be fitted with care and affection - just as she had sized up Oonagh in the kitchen of an ashram in Nevada four years previously. The knowledge made her shiver like she'd been exposed to a new kind of scrutiny and she let out an irrelevant, disconnected laugh and looked away.

"Of course, I told them all about you, too," Oonagh said leadingly.

Marthe rolled her head against the seat and let a sharp edge of mischief creep into her words. "And what did you tell them about me? Real country girl, outdoorsy. Friend to animals and small children. _She'll fit right in_."

Oonagh laughed, but batted Marthe's prickly words back without pause. "Don't worry, the fishing isn't compulsory." She pursed her lips and Marthe, for one giddy second, thought about undoing her seatbelt and opening the car door, just to end the conversation before it took on too much meaning.

Oonagh read the undercurrents of Marthe's hard breath and sighed, but her mouth twisted into a smirk. "No. No, of course I told them you're my one time lover, my there but for the grace of God, my one that got away." She darted a look at Marthe to evaluate the steadiness of her coolly lowered eyelids, the regularity of pigment on her smooth, clear cheeks.

"I said to them: Cai can't be around this week because the first thing I need to do when I get that woman alone at my bach is take off all of her clothes and make love to her in every room, everywhere, like we're teenagers with the house to ourselves for the first time in our lives. Can't have a wee boy around for that sort of carry on," Oonagh said drily, shaking her head.

Marthe stared at her, and Oonagh's knuckles whitened on the steering wheel as she steeled herself to continue. "I said, she's been through the works and she needs to know she is loved. She's away from the people who didn't value her, she's safe from the people who wanted to use her, and she's got nothing to do here but be herself. Her own beautiful self," Oonagh pressed her lips tight and nodded affirmation at the road.

Marthe could feel the tears drop from her eyelashes unbidden, and gawped at Oonagh's determined profile, stricken.

Oonagh's face reddened. "Marthe, I'm sorry. I know you want to leave it, but," Oonagh shook her head again. "Do you know how _angry_ I've been, since I heard about it? If I didn't have Cai I would have been on the first flight. I would have gone through them like they were tenpins."

Marthe realised that her jaw ached: she held her teeth together to stop them from chattering and she breathed unsteadily through her nose as emotion pricked the corners of her eyes.

It took a moment's focus to be certain that moving her features would let her words out but not her tears. "I..." _was perhaps overzealous with someone else's secrets. Let frustration get the better of me, when I saw people who were in love wasting that feeling. Should not have been there._

"Thank you, Oonagh."

Oonagh changed gears and let her hand drift further to her left, settling just above Marthe's knee and squeezing.

They rattled and bounced along dusty, dry trails and closed the windows and sunroof. It seemed, Marthe thought, that they were passing through a wall of rock into another world after all. Beyond the swirling grey and brown clouds, she could see gem-like flashes of aquamarine and sapphire: lake and sky, land and mountain curtained by the high December sun. Their trail snaked down to the lakeshore, onto the smoothed pebbles, dodging boats and trailers and more smiling locals: sturdy people in denims and galoshes, tanned children in lifejackets, armed with plastic fishing nets.

Oonagh guided them through the little community of holiday homes and back up away from the shore again, onto a rutted ribbon of grass that took them into a wooded area. The trees were big, like everything else about the landscape, with cracking bark that looked fit to burst from their sweeping boughs.

At the end of the verdant path Marthe spotted the lake once more. It was an intense glacial blue, reflected in the metallic rims of Oonagh's shades and the gloss of her black hair. A narrow wooden jetty protruded from a grassy bank dotted with wildflowers, a small boat bobbed on the water next to it, and an ash-black fire pit interrupted the small crescent of beach.

When Oonagh pulled up next to a little red cabin and switched the engine off, the absence of noise rang in Marthe's head. The ticking of the cooling engine blended with strange birdsong, and the lake sounded like the sea. She felt cold and tired and utterly bewildered and she sat staring at the unearthly colour of the water until Oonagh came around to open her door.

"Marthe, are you ok?"

Marthe blinked and released her belt. Oonagh was standing by her seat, her eyes level with Marthe's, sunglasses pushed back to show her concern. Her lips were ruffled by a tiny, sympathetic smile and she moved closer as Marthe turned to her.

Oonagh put her hands on the corduroy of Marthe's jacket and ran her fingers up to cup her face. "You're freezing, love!"

"I'm just tired," Marthe turned her head so that her cheeks pressed into Oonagh's warm palms alternately. Oonagh's digits rubbed her skin and she stepped into the space between Marthe's knees to touch her forehead, her nose, her lips to Marthe's.

It was only really then that Marthe realised just how weary she was - but it was not sleep that she craved. Oonagh's lips were the only tangible thing in her mind: curved and pliable, tasting distantly of vanilla, a heat source that all of Marthe's being suddenly cried out for, like something starving woken from hibernation. She let out an embarrassingly needy sound and grabbed for Oonagh's waist, deepening the kiss and flexing her thighs against Oonagh's body, drawing warmth from her wherever they touched.

Oonagh wrapped her arms tight about Marthe's own waist then, gripping her close in a bear-hug and pulling her from the car, their bodies pressed together in what was, for Marthe, a moment's desperate flight. She kicked her sneakers against the air and when she met the ground she tried to stay up, toes on point, to keep the contact with Oonagh's body.

She clawed the tie from Oonagh's bulky plait and plucked her sunglasses from her head. Oonagh took them and tossed them on the seat Marthe had vacated as Marthe's lips and teeth nuzzled the hot channels of Oonagh's neck. Oonagh laughed - a throaty laugh that made Marthe clamp her lips greedily to the vibrations, her hands diving deep into the loosed dark swell of Oonagh's hair. She got Oonagh to gasp - a sound like a drawn blade - and her hands faltered distractedly down Marthe's back.

Marthe pressed against her, hands now at Oonagh's hips, walking her back towards the wooden patio and the white door with its lacy curtain visible though glass.

Oonagh backed up the steps and bent to kiss Marthe, leaning over her, Marthe's hands trailing in hers, Oonagh's hair falling about them until Oonagh's boots knocked against the plastic cool box full of fish and she laughed in surprise.

Marthe gathered the box while Oonagh dug her keys from a pocket and let them into the cool, shady interior. Marthe did not pick up many of the details: Oonagh didn't put the lights on but led her to a little kitchen and unloaded the fish quickly into the fridge before rinsing her hands at the sink. In front of the window she was lit dappled green, her simple silver jewellery sparkling like sun breaking through leaves, her smile broad and unselfconscious and relaxed. She shook the water from her hands, dried them, and turned to Marthe like she was just as natural a part of the setting, sliding her touch around Marthe's body again, crushing Marthe's big jacket against her, kissing her with lips that refreshed and soothed.

"Now, I don't want to seem pushy," Oonagh purred. "You've had a long journey. I may have been dreaming of this for a good while now, but I can live a little longer with the dreams if you'd rather rest."

Marthe leaned her head back to give Oonagh a heavy-lidded look of reproach. "Are you kidding?" She covered Oonagh's plump bottom lip with her mouth and sucked it gently.

Down a corridor like a tunnel of blackthorn - dark wood and the pale blooms of family photographs and miniature landscape paintings on the walls - Marthe let herself be guided and spun about. One moment it was her shoulders to a doorframe, Oonagh's fingers in her back pockets, then she was supporting herself on a narrow sideboard, leaning over Oonagh's mischievous grin, and Oonagh's body had displaced a doily-like dust cover, and Marthe's hands were on either side of Oonagh's hips, moving only to push an ornament back from the edge.

The bedroom was brighter. Light linen curtains were drawn back to frame a view of the lake, and the whole room seemed filled by its ethereal turquoise glow. Marthe shrugged her heavy brown jacket off and Oonagh's hands rustled the cotton of her checked blouse, creasing it as she squeezed Marthe's body through the fabric.

Oonagh shimmied out of her own asymmetrical top and flung it over the back of a fine woven-cane chair. Her belly was hot beneath Marthe's fingers when she slid them beneath the wide hem of her t-shirt; Oonagh's skin was like the soft velveteen of an animal muzzle, silken as syrup, smooth in its dips and rises like an old plough and furrow landscape.

Marthe sighed as she felt her way over those contours. They were not exactly familiar, not after the single night they had shared together in Dublin - three years ago now - but they were reassuring, proving the reliability of Marthe's dogged memories. When Oonagh chuckled and bent forwards to tug at Marthe's own top, her stomach folded, rippled beneath Marthe's hands. Oonagh's fingers plucked at her buttons, leaving Marthe's blouse agape, letting her weave her warmth in around Marthe's waist and the small of her back as Marthe leaned against the blue wall, feeling suspended by points of heat in her body.

"You're not cold? You're not too tired?" Oonagh asked her between kisses like ripe fruit, pulling on the strings that held Marthe suspended.

Marthe made a sound in her throat and blinked sleepily up at the ceiling. "Tiredness can wait," she said, arching her back away from the wall so that her pelvis pressed against Oonagh's. Oonagh trailed her hand down Marthe's breast-bone, fingers jinking around the swellings of new skin and tissue.

Oonagh's breath stopped briefly, and she clamped her lip beneath her teeth. Her fingertips traced the two small pink scars on Marthe's hard body: two innocuous-looking entrance wounds.

She met Marthe's eyes and let her touch drift away.

"Sure?"

"Sure."

Marthe did not wear a bra under the loose blouse and Oonagh cupped each small breast in the hollows of her palms, rubbing gently as Marthe gripped her arse and pulled her close, tilting her hips against her.

They worked their shoes off and Marthe's teeth chattered at the feeling of the cold floor under her bare toes, so Oonagh led her across the room thinking to get her off her feet - but Marthe claimed a new height differential instead, spinning them around and pushing Oonagh lightly down onto the bed.

Oonagh sat on its edge, smiling beguilingly up at Marthe, her dark brows expectant with a subtlety of excitement. She kissed the yielding flesh of Marthe's belly, her hands on the waist of her jeans, her mouth seeming hotter with each touch, dimpling Marthe's body beneath her heavy lips.

Marthe wrestled her way around Oonagh's clinging touch to get a grip on the hem of the other woman's top. She pulled it up and over Oonagh's head, revealing the full extent of her toned arms and the pastel lace of her bra - it was so thin it showed her dark nipples as silhouettes, round as coins through the pattern. Marthe swept the waves of Oonagh's black hair back over her shoulders, gazing down through heavy-lidded eyes at the contour and shadow of collarbones like the lip of a vessel. She clasped Oonagh's oval-shaped face between her hands and bent to kiss her, letting the buzzing pressure in her chest overflow and spill into her head as she leaned down: an avalanche of want, burying all thoughts of the journey and the time spent apart.

Their bodies coiled and twined on the rumpled surface of the bedclothes, folding like the quilt to accommodate legs tangled between legs, hands in the smalls of backs, faces buried in the valleys of necks and cleavage, fingers running down between trousers and underwear. Marthe felt the heat between Oonagh's legs and smelled her through thin cotton and she felt parched, like she had subsisted her whole life on sand and dry bone and had just, for the first time, seen a spray of fresh water. She rubbed her fingers into the pliant folds beneath the fabric and Oonagh hissed longingly and drew her teeth over Marthe's mouth and chin.

Oonagh pulled the waists of trousers and knickers away from her body and Marthe freed her own hand to help drag the barriers down, tugging each leg until Oonagh was left resplendent in ankle socks and bra, black hair, black pupils wide, nipples hard, black triangle of tidy growth above her thighs. Marthe leaned to kiss her, but then rolled onto her back and guided Oonagh with insistent hands until Oonagh knelt over her. Oonagh's knees were to each side of Marthe's body, pinning the fabric of her sprawled, open blouse beneath them. Marthe put one hand on the top of Oonagh's thigh and the other over her breast, her fingers creating friction between the lace and the sensitive skin beneath.

Marthe could feel how turned on she was herself and she arched her body against Oonagh to feel her against her skin: hot like a fever, wet enough that the curls of her hair had a shine to them, and when Marthe pushed her thumb through them she slid easily to the hood above Oonagh's clit. She applied just enough pressure to draw it back and flicker her thumb down over the nub there, and Oonagh gasped.

The smell of her filled the room, her body shone in the blue light from the lake, and Marthe felt suddenly, fiercely jealous of the lake: like it was a third party with its eyes all over Oonagh's skin, a lover that had shared her when Marthe could not be there. The only thing for it was to submerge herself. Marthe bit her lip and pulled Oonagh by her arse further up her body, until Oonagh's knees were on either side of Marthe's face. She reached up to undo Oonagh's bra and she wanted to run her tongue over all the little red indents in Oonagh's skin. Oonagh was no longer the precariously skinny woman of post-trauma recovery, but dynamic, vital, in a body that she used how she chose to.

As Oonagh shimmied free of her bra Marthe looked up past the thicket of her hair, over the little curves of her belly and the weighty, dark crescents of her breasts, to the softness beneath her sharp chin.

"You don't know how badly I've missed you," Marthe admitted, but before Oonagh could reply she shifted her shoulders, reached up to encircle the small of Oonagh's back with her hands, and nuzzled her face into the furnace between her thighs.

Marthe nosed aside wet black ringlets and covered lips with her lips, filling herself with the savoury, heady taste. She lapped her tongue wide over Oonagh's opening before dipping inside, pushing past folds and stretching deep. Her hands moved from Oonagh's waist to her thighs, her fingers stretching around the backs of Oonagh's legs to stroke calloused musician's fingertips over silken creases around her arse and legs.

The way Oonagh’s muscles tensed made Marthe grin with satisfaction, and she withdrew her tongue before it could start cramping at the root. She kissed and sucked around Oonagh's contours, licked in short strokes up towards Oonagh's clit and basked in the sound of the other woman's urgent, breathy syllables.

"Yeah, Marthe, yeah, I fucking missed you too, believe me, I know."

Oonagh reached down to hold her neat hair and the skin of her hood up, and Marthe took the invitation with insatiable eagerness. She pressed the hard tip of her tongue over Oonagh's clit, raked her teeth as gently as could be over it and kissed it with swirling tongue as Oonagh's hips rocked and she cried out. She was growing firm under Marthe's touch and Marthe did not relent, her tongue flicking, tapping, licking with determination as Oonagh rolled her hips over and over Marthe's mouth.

When Oonagh said thickly, "Oh _Christ_ , keep doing that!" Marthe continued the fluttering motion of her tongue as though her jaw had not begun to ache, as though her own body did not throb jealously, as though her neck didn't tickle with the same wetness that covered her chin and cheeks and nose. She was rewarded with Oonagh's hoarse moans, her unsteady fingers catching and twisting in Marthe's short hair, little shudders that went through Oonagh's legs and made her arse clench under Marthe's hands.

Marthe raised her brows as Oonagh looked down at her, her lower lip dark and swollen by the working of her teeth against it. She managed a wobbly half-grin and her eyelids fluttered as she moaned again. "Gently, go gently now."

Over and over the form of her clit, like a little cherry pip beneath her wet mouth, Marthe settled rhythmic, lingering kisses and soothed with her tongue instead of agitating. She stared up at Oonagh's slowly softening features: the perfect black sweep of her long lashes and the red heat staining her cheekbones. As though she had to remember how her limbs moved, Oonagh finally raised herself from Marthe's mouth and planted her hands on the bed to either side of her.

Oonagh moved her legs to the other side of Marthe's shoulders and grinned down at her. She dropped a kiss on the tip of Marthe's nose and slid her tongue over it coyly. Inch by inch, Oonagh moved her mouth over Marthe's face, before she kissed Marthe's puffy, tender lips with care.

Marthe's fingers danced over Oonagh's breasts, teasing her nipples erect, stroking, distracting Marthe from her own body's fire by chasing down the heat in Oonagh's. She scooped Oonagh's hair back and held it behind her neck to kiss her deeply, and when Oonagh pulled away to sit up, Marthe chewed the inside of her lip, annoyed at the whimper that had burst from her mouth: an honest response to being separated from Oonagh's mouth.

Oonagh dismounted from Marthe's belly and knelt beside her, looking down with flushed features and an excited glitter in her dark pupils. "Jeans off. Now."

Marthe felt her eyes go wide and tried to make herself obey as slowly as she could, her smile spreading rakishly as Oonagh's exasperation grew. It was fun for a few seconds, seeing Oonagh about to pounce and drag the clothes from her, but Marthe's own patience was then as thin as Oonagh's. She broke the heated stare they shared and squirmed free of her jeans and underwear in a rush, finally resigning control to Oonagh, who pulled Marthe's legs up high, perpendicular to the bed, to toss the clothing away over her shoulder.

Oonagh was kneeling at the foot of the bed now, Marthe's pale legs clasped up against her shoulder. She ran her hands down Marthe's shins and circled to stroke the backs of her thighs, brushing the fine hairs on Marthe's legs against their grain, soothing over dimples of gooseflesh behind Marthe's knees.

Marthe pressed her splayed fingers into the slightly itchy surface of the bed cover and flexed her hips up from it, letting Oonagh's reach trail further over her thighs. Oonagh leaned one scorching cheek against Marthe's ankle and then rearranged Marthe's legs so she had one on each of Oonagh's shoulders. Oonagh's hands were like silk being drawn over the sensitive, sun-starved skin of Marthe's limbs.

She kissed the inside of one of Marthe's legs down to her knee, and her hair brushed the other leg so that Marthe's belly rose and dipped with waves of gasping breaths. Oonagh gave each leg her attention and then lay down between them and lavished kisses in the same manner all the way up to the hard muscle curving between Marthe's thigh and pelvis. Oonagh opened her mouth and ran her teeth gently over thin skin and one of Marthe's cramping hands came down on a stray ribbon of black hair and wound it around her finger.

Oonagh looked up and ran her tongue over her lower lip and Marthe smiled sweetly and tugged gently on the coil of hair. Oonagh chuckled in her low-voiced way and said: "Fair."

She lowered her face to the wiry sprig of strawberry blonde curls and inhaled, her eyes closed, brows soft beneath her tidy widow's peak.

Marthe ran her free hand along the inside of her own thigh as Oonagh's fingers parted her and began to massage the slick surfaces between her legs. It had been so long since even her own hand had explored those sensitive folds and gullies: it wasn't worth trying to get off in a crowded hospital ward, or in a home where one was nursed by elderly relatives and a blubbering, apologetic husband. It hadn't seemed worth it for a godawful long time prior that, and Marthe's thighs flinched and tensed at the thought, so Oonagh's sea-green eyes looked up at her face, bright with curiosity.

Marthe put on a reassuring smile and made her legs relax. "It's ok. Just a bit sensitive," she murmured.

Oonagh's fingers - stroking, submerging, circling - moved slowly. She kept her eyes on Marthe's until Marthe let her head fall back onto the bed with a sigh.

The ceiling of the little room was bare, pale wood. Blue light skimmed its surface and Marthe thought, with a gradual return to her sleepy contentment, that the way the sunlight touched the lake outside was the way she wanted Oonagh to touch her.

It occurred to her that the landscape here was the colour of Oonagh's eyes. It was why it felt so unreal, because she'd been thinking of that colour for years, wondering why old photoshoots in magazines from the 1970s didn't match up with her memories. She let her eyelids fall shut and breathed deeply through the warmth of Oonagh's tongue on her. It felt like being revealed, touch by touch, layers of denial of herself painstakingly eroded and away.

Marthe rolled her hips into Oonagh's strokes, pushing up against her mouth. When Oonagh made a sound of pleasure her lips vibrated against Marthe's skin and Marthe thought her bones had turned to liquid, spreading her out over the bedcovers. Her cry made Oonagh repeat the sound, and Marthe tried to focus all of her concentration on the probing heat between her legs, the unpredictable, coy tide that seemed to ebb from her consciousness as soon as it came close.

She bit her lips and finally let out a gasp of " _Please_."

Oonagh's fingers took the place of her tongue and she looked up. "What do you need, love?"

Marthe made a sound of frustration and glared at the ceiling. "I need you closer," she said softly.

Oonagh kissed the tops of her thighs again, kissed her hipbones, kept stroking in circles as Marthe held her hood back. "You want me up there?"

Raising her head from the bed, Marthe beckoned and Oonagh came to her. She left her hand working gently over Marthe's clit, but drew her long, tanned body up alongside her, lying on Marthe's open shirt, her head propped up on her other arm, her eyes and smile soft.

"Are you all right? I thought you might have nodded off there at one point."

Marthe snorted and teasingly evaded Oonagh's kiss, so her wet lips landed on Marthe's neck instead.

Oonagh continued to kiss her along the muscles that led down to her collarbone, trailing across her chest to the opposite features and turning Marthe's face towards her by the movement of her mouth, moving up to her earlobe and the soft hair that curled behind it.

Throughout this her fingers worked over Marthe, rubbing and swirling. Every touch was like a promise, but Marthe's mind rebelled against the need to relax into it. Worried that Oonagh would lose confidence, though every gesture was right, Marthe pulled her into a deep kiss.

"Do you know, that night in Dublin with you is still the best sex I've ever had."

Oonagh smiled, and something within Marthe's chest twisted uncomfortably at the kindness in it. Oonagh shifted her free hand to stroke Marthe's chin and she planted a sweet, understanding kiss on her lips. "Love. Do you think that, maybe, you're putting pressure on yourself now to feel exactly that way again? Not that I remember it any differently."

If Marthe had not already been sprawled as flat as she could be against the bed, she thought she might have fallen back at Oonagh's words. She stared up at her, focussing desperately on Oonagh's green irises, on her full, crimson lips, trying to ignore the dumb burst of emotion behind her own sternum.

"That's not fair," Marthe's mouth curved lopsidedly and she shook her head. "Just...when you put it like that."

"I've been there myself, love," Oonagh reminded her.

Trying to salvage some dignity, Marthe dissembled: "Am I not your Lennon anymore?"

Oonagh's hand stopped its movements. Despite the shadow of worry that crossed Marthe's expression, she shifted her weight, leaning to prop herself over Marthe's body, her hair trickling down over her shoulder to spill on Marthe's skin.

"You got shot. In a public place. It seemed a bit tasteless to use that."

Marthe stared at her in surprise, and then, to Oonagh's own bemusement, she burst out laughing and pulled Oonagh into a sloppy kiss. Marthe let her hands and her concentration move away from her own body and she ceased worrying about sensations that remained beyond reach. She grasped for what was at hand instead, her palms on each side of Oonagh's face, her tongue rolling against Oonagh's, her body a vessel she would fill with this love that emanated from their touch.

" _My Ono_ ," Marthe said, her voice gritty with repressed emotion. "I'm not gonna let the world take that piece of us."

She kissed Oonagh again, a breath between speech to push past the feelings taking form in her chest. "I'm not letting it take any more from me. From us."

Oonagh's smile was bright like sun on sea foam. "Then, a _lheannán_ , let's forget about what the world wants. What do you want?"

Marthe felt like she was balancing on a crumbling cliff-edge, breathing with the rhythm of the waves on the lake, exposed without knowing how, because she had never felt as new and vulnerable as she did when Oonagh looked at her like that.

"You. Just you."

Recovering, her pulse racing in the wake of Oonagh's kisses, Marthe's smile remembered its rakish confidence.

"Also, I believe you mentioned something about 'every room in the house'?"


	3. Chapter 3

Marthe did not take to fishing. She preferred to lie with her head in Oonagh's lap, reading the battered copy of _A River Rules my Life_ that Oonagh kept in her bach, and objecting where she found Mona Anderson's forbearance objectionable. The sun was hot and the wind and water were cold, and Marthe would lie with her shirt open as Oonagh's long fingers rubbed sickly sweet layers of sun cream into her skin and her scars.

They ate on the beach as the sun set over the lake, fresh catches and fresh herbs devoured straight from the foil pockets they had been cooked in. Fingers laced with charcoal and grease left tempting smudges on skin, where touch had swept hair back from faces. Oonagh kissed one oily streak on Marthe's forehead and Marthe sucked her own thumb clean with slow, knowing relish as Oonagh watched.

They walked and Marthe felt strength return as the sun brought colour to her blue-pale skin. By day she followed the sight of Oonagh's smooth, toned legs, bronzed from her thick walking socks to the high hem of her shorts. By night she kissed each spot that the foliage had brushed as Oonagh passed by, reclaiming Oonagh from the grasping landscape.

The lake was cold, but Marthe insisted on swimming. It was a battle between her and the water, where she endured and then lost herself, chilled limbs melding in confusion with chilled currents. When that happened, she burst from the shallows with sound and fury and raced into Oonagh's arms and the waiting towel she held. The beach was theirs; the lake was theirs; all time was theirs.

Marthe taught Oonagh the rest of the poem that had come into her mind when she first learned the name of the lake.

" _Are there two things, of all which men possess,_

_That are so like each other and so near,_

_As mutual Love seems like to Happiness?_

_Dear Asra, woman beyond utterance dear!_

_This Love which ever welling at my heart,_

_Now in its living fount doth heave and fall,_

_Now overflowing pours thro' every part_

_Of all my frame, and fills and changes all,_

_Like vernal waters springing up through snow,_

_This Love that seeming great beyond the power_

_Of growth, yet seemeth ever more to grow,_

_Could I transmute the whole to one rich Dower_

_Of Happy Life, and give it all to Thee,_

_Thy lot, methinks, were Heaven, thy age, Eternity!_ "


End file.
